More from NBC

Obama: Big profile day

Lots of news organizations kicked off convention week with Obama retrospectives. Bloomberg News looks at Obama's "coolness" what he needs to do. "For the Illinois senator, cool can be complicated. It helps him maintain composure as he bursts through the barriers of race and politics; it also creates about him an aura of detachment. It fuels his boldness as well as his caution, the inspiration and the calculation, the intelligence and the ambition that will make him this week the first black presidential nominee of a major U.S. party."

More: "Obama so far has picked his battles carefully, choosing most often to focus on winning converts. 'One of the dangers here is that in the effort to constantly adjust his position, people then begin to wonder where his bottom line is,'' says Leon Panetta, President Clinton's former chief of staff. 'He's got to show that he's got a bottom line and that he's willing to fight for it.'"

Also, check out this endorsement to someone who came from the Jim Baker world. 'I've been in meetings with at least three different presidents,' says Dennis Ross, the former Middle East envoy for Presidents George H.W. Bush and Clinton. 'He wasn't just up to the level, he was superior.'"

Politico's Roger Simon has a tour de force of a behind-the-scenes, how-did-it-happen? piece on the Dem primary. It opens with some great nuggets about how close Clinton came to hiring Axelrod and Hildebrand.

The Boston Globe profiles Obama and focuses on his days at Occidental College in California. "Oxy, as it is affectionately known, nurtured his transformation. He started playing basketball less so he could read and study more. After shying away from activism early in his college career, he joined an antiapartheid campaign. He came to terms with his identity, eventually ditching his nickname, Barry, and embracing Barack. And then, yearning for a bigger stage, he engineered a transfer to Columbia."

Talk about the biggest speech of his life! NBC/NJ's Athena Jones observes. Obama arrived at a downtown Chicago hotel to work on his convention speech at about 7:12 pm CST, and he did not depart until 1:54 am CST, That's nearly seven hours, in case you're counting. It was the third night in a row that he has spent several hours at this hotel working on his speech.